


Five Firsts in Five Thousand (Though Usually the Third Time’s the Charm)

by calime



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calime/pseuds/calime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5000+ years, that's a lot of first times - many of them unmemorable, some unforgettable...<br/>Contains Methos, primarily, and brief guest appearances by all and sundry through the Methos-lens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Firsts in Five Thousand (Though Usually the Third Time’s the Charm)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lferion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/gifts).



> Written for Lferion for the 2011 Highlander Holiday Shortcuts fic exchange on Livejournal  
>  Lferion has admitted to liking Methos and first times, so, um, that’s basically what’s here. A thousand thanks goes out to my wonderful beta Elistaire. Anything that’s wrong is my fault and anyone in the story who belongs to TPTB does not belong to me. Oh, and it is technically not a crossover, though I borrowed a name from Holby City, but feel free to read it any way that suits you :).

Sometimes Methos thinks people place too much stock in the first times. First is not necessarily the best, or the worst, or the only. And often, he feels overwhelmed by all the firsts around him, in his past lives, inside him waiting to sprout like buds of indefinite possibilities.

There are so many firsts in every day of life – each of his lives – that sometimes they scrape him raw, make him try to curl in on himself like a snail without a shell, to hide – into quiet places or old books, where time seems to move more slowly. Yet it is still only an illusion of safety, for there are first times everywhere – a new meaning suddenly ambushing him on page 16 of a too-familiar manuscript, a forgotten page in his own diary discovered anew, as he stares at it, feeling betrayed....

He does not recall which was the first language he spoke – well, he probably does remember the language, but not that it was the first. But every time after taking a Quickening, after reviving he remembers how it feels to recover language and mind, another first, surfacing through mindlessness and not-being, communication from shut-in.

***

The first time the boy had looked with hate at the sea was when the tiny fishing-boat belonging to his hearth-sister had washed ashore empty after a tense, painfully quiet, almost windless week of waiting. She's living as a seal in the realm of Ahto, the water-god, the elders had said. But the boy, looking at the sleek seals sunbathing with their pups, could not help but wonder whether Ahto's seals were kinder to her than her own people had been. He’d wanted to hope it was so, but he could not help also resenting his sister a little – she had always loved him and the sea, and now she’d chosen the sea and left him behind.

***

Some would say that any incarnation of the Mother’s Lover, ever-young, ever-dying, ever-reborn, was wont to be a happy man, a lucky man, lacking nothing – neither food, drink, fair maidens and boys nor anything else their heart might desire – for a whole year, and knowing that in dying, their sacrifice brought life and food for their kin and another turn for the Wheel of Heaven, lest it fall out of Order and into Chaos. Nevertheless, the Lover of incarnations 66 through 82, according to the meticulous accounting by intricate leather knots, had felt true happiness for the first time only when standing over the very dead, bloody body of the eldest Talks-With-Gods, listening to the crackling of flames already beginning to nibble at the low rafters in the far end of the sacred hall. ("Well, in a way it was an early effort in sustainable development – reuse, recycle...." he'd quipped after half-accidentally spilling the story to Joe one dark, drunk night for inexplicable reasons, too late to take it back, trying to make a joke of it. Joe had only shaken his head and poured him another shot, and another, bless and curse the man for his perceptiveness.)

***

Adam Bengtsson, a young apothecary in the employ of the Town Council of Rewal, had lead an unremarkable life, somewhat famous (and rightly so) only by his excellent claret, the recipe for which he steadfastly refused to divulge. (That was a cause for deep annoyance to the Town Council, especially after said Bengtsson mysteriously disappeared in the year 1448 of Our Lord, necessitating for his journeyman to take over the pharmacy. Sadly, _his_ claret never quite had the same particular flavour.) So the blame for accidentally spawning a long-lasting tradition should probably be laid at the door of one Dieter, nicknamed Red for the colour of his beard, a reputable (though somewhat rowdy) member of the Guild of Blackheads.

Said Dieter had loudly despaired for his inability to raise to the level of the appointed master of revels for the Yule celebrations.

“Much better if it was the spring, everyone loves dancing around the maypole, and the archery competition, and the mock tourney,” he’d mourned to the third cup of claret and the apothecary.

“So have the archery and the games and the dancing, then,” Bengtsson had suggested.

Dieter had looked doubtful. “It’d be too similar, and the Dominicans are already preaching how the maypole is a heathen custom and a tool for the devil.”

Adam Bengtsson, being the learned man he was, had stumbled upon a solution.

“Take a real tree then, an evergreen one, and tell the good friars that it is supposed to be the symbol of the tree of life, like Our Saviour is the symbol for eternal life,” he’d suggested and offered Dieter a refill of his cup.

(“I did not expect it to become a tradition, to more or less spread like fungus to every town where the Blackheads had their Guild,” Methos had admitted. “ The idea to burn the tree after the end of the holiday was all Dieter’s, though. It is probably a blessing that it did not catch on so widely....”

Richie had learned forward, fascinated.

“So, basically you guys invented the Christmas tree. Did you make up the Santa Claus, too, with all that red coat and white beard and...?”

Methos had glared at him. “I’ve never been associated with Coca Cola in any way.”

“What Coke’s to do with it?” Richie’d asked, perplexed.

Methos had just groaned. Didn’t these youngsters know _anything_ at all?)

***

The first time newly-enrolled medical student Dan had gotten a pet was entirely the fault of his no-good, meddling friends. (“If you want to look really authentic, you should get a cat. Every med student I know has a cat,” – in retrospective, he should've really known better than to take anything Amanda said at a face value. And of course Duncan bloody-goody-two-shoes had 'just coincidentally' happened to know a nice animal shelter through some charity or other he'd involved himself with.)

It had looked deceptively cute and innocent. It had purred and chased after anything dangled in front of its nose and regarded humans as its rightful subjects. Count for the debit column so far had been two sets of curtains, one well-situated rental apartment (“It is strictly a no-pet building, my dear Mr. Clifford, I'm afraid.”), one vase that was older than the cat-peddling thief and the Highland bastard put together and one feather duvet (due to cat piss being a mark for eternity). Number of snarky comments by his dear friends – “Oh, you mean it takes over your home and does what it wants? Sure does remind me of someone....” – infinite. And Amanda had just emailed him a link to something called 'Simon's cat'.

Methos had looked at the tiny gray ball curled up on the keyboard of his laptop and poked it gently with a finger. It had promptly switched on the purr, though failing to give any other outside sign of intelligent life, the sly creature it was.

Maybe he ought to get a second kitten, too, to keep the first one company. After all, he was away from home rather a lot. Though some home remodeling was probably in order....

***

The first time Methos had ended up in bed with both Amanda and Duncan was not anything to be remembered very fondly, or, to be remembered at all, given the amount of alcohol consumed to dilute the grief of an inevitable parting of mortal and immortal. The second time, though, past immortal hangovers and with sadness worn thinner with time, had been rather as good as he'd expected, barring a few awkward elbows. The third time, even more so. He’d always known most things got better with repetition.


End file.
